the first settlers, and had been the
intimate companion of all those excellent and famous men who laid the
foundation of our country. They were all gone before him to the grave; and
Bradstreet was the last of the Puritans."

Grandfather paused a moment, and smiled, as if he had something very
interesting to tell his auditors. He then proceeded:

"And now, Laurence,--now, Clara,--now, Charley,--now, my dear little
Alice,--what chair do you think had been placed in the council chamber, for
old Governor Bradstreet to take his seat in? Would you believe that it was
this very chair in which grandfather now sits, and of which he is telling
you the history?"

"I am glad to hear it, with all my heart!" cried Charley, after a shout of
delight. "I thought Grandfather had quite forgotten the chair."

"It was a solemn and affecting sight," said Grandfather, "when this
venerable patriarch, with his white beard flowing down upon his breast,
took his seat in his Chair of State. Within his remembrance, and even
since his mature age, the site where now stood the populous town, had been
a wild and forest-covered peninsula. The province, now so fertile, and
spotted with thriving villages, had been a desert wilderness. He was
surrounded by a shouting multitude, most of whom had been born in the
country which he had helped to found. They were of one generation, and he
of another. As the old man looked upon them, and beheld new faces
everywhere, he must have felt that it was now time for him to go, whither
his brethren had gone before him."

"Were the former governors all dead and gone?" asked Laurence.

"All of them," replied Grandfather. "Winthrop had been dead forty years.
Endicott died, a very old man, in 1665. Sir Henry Vane was beheaded in
London, at the beginning of the reign of Charles the Second. And Haynes,
Dudley, Bellingham and Leverett, who had all been governors of
Massachusetts, were now likewise in their graves. Old Simon Bradstreet was
the sole representative of that departed brotherhood. There was no other
public man remaining to connect the ancient system of government and
manners with the new system, which was about to take its place. The era of
the Puritans was now completed."

"I am sorry for it," observed Laurence; "for, though they were so stern,
yet it seems to me that there was something warm and real about them. I
think, Grandfather, that each of these old governors should have his
statue set up in our Stat